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Saturday, January 22, 2011

Baby Sign Class Number 1

I figured I better blog about the first baby sign class before I go to the second one. It's better to do it now before I get it jumbled up with the second one in my head, then sit down to write and can't differentiate between the two.

Baby Sign Class Number 1:

Husband and I were the youngest parents with the oldest child. That surprised me, although looking back on it I shouldn't have been. The sign class is in a nearby college town. It is a highly desirable place to live that is way out of our price range (believe me, we tried to find a house to buy there- unless we wanted to live in a one bedroom shack, it wasn't happening). It is full of ambitious college students or well-to-do professionals who have somehow found a job that makes a lot of money. Thus, they worked on their careers for a while before having babies. This explains why the parents were all older. The babies were all younger because the parents are all those crazy overachievers and want their kids to be the same way (yes, this is my opinion).

Baby was the oldest baby at eleven months. The youngest was five months and the class average was about eight months. The teacher was a high energy lady who has been doing this for years and was part of original studies about baby sign.

Husband and I took the cheap route, so we didn't purchase the supplies that came along with the class. Thus, we don't have the board books, DVDs, video library, flip chart, etc. that can be used along with the baby sign. Instead, we have our memories from class and photocopied handouts.

But I think I'm getting ahead of myself.

We found the place okay and joined the circle of parents on the carpet. There were a bunch of toys spread out that the teacher said the babies could play with. Baby sat in my lap for a while and didn't venture out at first.

Everyone went around the room and introduced themselves, along with describing their experiences with sign. All we knew was the sign for "more", and apparently I had been teaching Baby to do "all done" incorrectly. Oops.

Then the teacher talked about all the benefits of Baby sign (feel free to Google them) and her experiences. All positive, it seems.

Then we started into the singing and signing. She taught us Eat, Drink, Bib, Milk, Nurse, All Done, Please, Cereal, More, Hungry. That's all I can remember off the top of my head. She had a giant bear puppet that she used to help keep the babies attention and we all sang songs and clapped and modeled the signs for our babies.

A little ways into the class Baby decided she felt comfortable and started going for the toys. The teacher had mentioned that it was okay for the babies to play with the toys, so I didn't hold Baby back. She had fun exploring them, but didn't really pay any attention to the signing. When I pulled her back into my lap she got right back up again. She also kept snatching toys away from the other kids and I had to keep taking them from her and giving them back.

The last fifteen minutes of class Baby decided she was done. She kept trying to escape from the circle and head to the diaper bags and carseats. I tried holding her, holding her while standing, Husband tried, but she just kept squirming and screeching. We held out as long as we could through the good bye song, and as soon as the class was done we hit the road.

On the way home Husband and I tried to remember the signs we had learned. We are a little divided over one of them, so we'll see how it's really done when we go to class number two tomorrow.

This week we've been trying to do the signs with Baby, and her daycare has too (we taught M the signs as well). So far she has ignored us. Hopefully she'll catch on and tomorrow perhaps pay a little bit more attention. One thing she did catch though, was a cold. I'm pretty sure she caught it from the baby next to us with the runny nose. Baby kept stealing what she was chewing on, then putting it in her mouth. The two of them swapped spit quite a few times. Baby has since passed on the cold to her mommy. Yay, me.

About Me

I am a public school teacher turned stay at home mom to three little ones. I'm just trying to figure out how to balance this thing called life and thought I would document it honestly at the same time. Please feel free to comment!